Cluster bombs are banned by 83 nations.

2013-08-23. Foreign Policy / Anti war bloggEven as they condemn the Syrian regime’s use of cluster munitions, the U.S. is selling Saudi Arabia $640 million worth of American-made cluster bombs.
Cluster munitions have been banned in 83 countries on account of their
indiscriminate nature and their record of killing children.

Cluster bombs spit out dozens, even hundreds, of micro-munitions in
order cover a wide area with death and destruction.

- These weapons are
used for killing large groups of people, destroying thinly-skinned
vehicles and dispensing landmines or poison gas.

Some of the Soviet-made
incendiary cluster bombs used by Assad's forces during Syria's civil
war are even designed to light buildings on fire and then explode after
sitting on the ground for a while -- thereby killing anyone who gets
close enough to try to extinguish the flames.

The irony of the U.S. selling one authoritarian Middle East country
1,300 cluster bombs while criticising the use of indiscriminate weapons
by another isn't lost on the Cluster Munition Coalition, an
international group dedicated to ending the use of such weapons.

"- This transfer announcement comes at a time when Saudi Arabia and the
U.S. have joined international condemnations of Syria's cluster bomb
use," said Sarah Blakemore, director of the Cluster Munition Coalition,
in a statement about the sale.

These weapons are loathed because in addition to killing enemy
combatants, their fairly indiscriminate nature means they can kill
plenty of civilians. And not just in the heat of battle. The little
ball-shaped bomblets dispersed by cluster munitions don't always
detonate on first impact. Often, they will just sit there on the ground
until someone, often a child, picks them up and causes them to explode.

So far, 112 countries have signed an international treaty banning cluster bombs,
with 83 ratifying it. Guess who isn't part of that club? China, Russia,
most for the former USSR, Syria... and the United States, which is
selling thousands Textron-made cluster bombs to the Saudis between now
and 2015.

Despite the fact that the U.S. State Department says
it "shares in the international concern about the humanitarian impact
of all munitions, including cluster munitions" it's in no hurry to sign
the ban. Foggy Bottom insists that "their elimination from U.S.
stockpiles would put the lives of its soldiers and those of its
coalition partners at risk."

***

- That's because "cluster munitions can often result in much less
collateral damage than unitary weapons, such as a larger bomb or larger
artillery shell would cause," the State Department claims.

Still, the U.S. has actually put a moratorium on exporting cluster
weapons that result in more than one percent of the bomblets falling
unexploded to the ground, where they can wound and kill years after
conflicts end. The CBU-105D/B
weapons the U.S. is selling to Saudi Arabia don't fall under that
moratorium, however. Fewer than one-percent of their submunitions fail
to detonate. "Clear victories, clear battlefields," promises a Textrtron brochure for the weapons.

"The U.S. should acknowledge the treaty's ban on cluster munition
exports and reevaluate the criteria for its export moratorium so that no
cluster munitions are transferred," said Blakemore.

Don't expect that to happen anytime soon. The cluster bomb sale is just
the latest in a string ongoing arms deals between the U.S. and Saudi
Arabia that include dozens of F-15SA Strike Eagle fighter jets, AH-64
Apache attack helicopters, H-60 Blackhawk helicopters and AH-6 Little
Bird choppers as well as radars, anti-ship missiles, guided bombs,
anti-radar missiles, surface to air missiles and even cyber defenses
for those brand new Strike Eagles.

It's a relationship that's worth
tens of billions to American defense contractors. And even though the
Saudi and the American governments have recently been at odds over a
range of issues -- Riyadh recently offered to replace any financial aid to Egypt's military rulers
that the U.S. withdrew -- those arms sales are all-but-certain to
continue. If the Saudis want cluster bombs, the U.S. will provide -- no
matter what the world thinks.

Leaked Documents: U.S. Framed Syria in Chemical Weapons Attackhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbfcceEkn_M#t=153"Does anyone really think that Assad is stupid enough to hit civilians (especially children) with chemical weapons just 5 blocks from where the UN chemical weapons inspection team was staying, knowing that such a chemical weapon attack would be all the justification the United States needed for a direct military invasion, to reverse Assad's near-victory over the hired mercenary army? Remember, leaked emails earlier in the year confirmed that the Obama administration authorized a plan to deploy chemical weapons against the Syrian people for the express purpose of framing Assad, and US-made chemical weapons were given to the hired mercenaries by Turkey."

Two reports in recent days have suggested that establishment-backed Syrian “rebel” forces trained and led by American, Israeli, and Jordanian commanders entered Syria and began pushing toward the capital city of Damascus this month. According to sources cited in the international reports, the foreign-led opposition fighters began the latest offensive in mid-August, prior to the reported chemical-weapon attack in the Ghouta region of Syria widely said to have claimed hundreds of civilian lives so far. http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/reports-u-s-led-rebels-sent-into-syria-before-chemical-attack/62861